


Bread For War

by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Baking, Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, but there is bread, oh there's no substance here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 21:31:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17588792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/pseuds/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion
Summary: Alec has flour in orifices he never knew he had, and Magnus has the audacity to find it adorable.





	Bread For War

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a bad pun, apologies. Also I burned my bread, and this is me dealing with my sadness. It is unedited, and written in maybe 30 minutes? I hope you enjoy it anyway!
> 
> No Warnings, but maybe one swear? Who knows!

Alec didn't know bread would be this tricky to make when he began the endeavour.

He envisioned a glorious feast. He expected the fresh smell of hot, baking bread to fill the loft. He imagined the bread, perfectly cooked, golden and crisp, hollow when tapped, sitting on a platter in the middle of their dining table. He even bought dip for the occasion. 

The reality is a little different than his daydreams. 

Alarmed, Alec shakes his fingers to try and dislodge the glop clinging to his skin. He may as well have plunged hands-first into a block of drying cement, for all the good it does. One of his sleeves is slipping dangerously close to the gunk covering his wrist, but he can’t pull it up without getting _more_ gunk everywhere. 

“Who the fuck designed bread,” Alec mutters flatly, shaking his hands more vigorously. He feels something land on his face and disregards it as unimportant: his face, at least for today, is a lost cause. 

He has flour in orifices he never even knew he had. 

“You’re not winning,” Alec tells the bowl of sticky goo, glaring darkly at the dough. He keeps his voice low in case Magnus hears him and decides, in his usual calm, rational way, to tranquillise Alec from the safety of the doorway. 

“You’re just yeast.” Alec sprinkles more flour down - to what end, he doesn’t know, but it seems like the only way out of this. “I have the upper hand here.”

It’s possible that the statement is false. It’s possible that the dough has _both_ of Alec’s hands, actually, regardless of how high up he can get them. 

“I did not come out at my own damn wedding to be defeated by bread,” Alec decides firmly. 

He plunges his hands back into the fray. 

*

Magnus didn’t think Alec could be any more adorable - and he uses the word lightly, where he won’t be heard and treated to a burning scowl - but then he wanders out of his study one Sunday to find Alec waging war on bread. 

There’s flour dusting every surface. Some on Alec’s nose, some sprinkled on the kettle and the coffee machine, some smeared on the cupboards and _more_ than some on the floor. Little scuff marks indicate where Alec’s feet have been, clad in tartan slippers that give Magnus a giddy sense of joy to see. Not because there’s something very sweet about Alec in slippers, and tartan ones at that, and not because they give credit to Isabelle’s insistence that Alec is an old man, trapped in the body of a twenty-five year old - although both of those things are accurate too. 

No, it’s because Alec wears heavy boots, often. The sight of him soft-footed leaves Magnus breathless with love, because it means he’s _comfortable._ He feels safe here, in the loft, with Magnus. Safe enough to shed his armour. 

“Alexander, love,” Magnus says, leaning one hip against the doorway. “Is everything alright?”

Alec slaps something on the counter with the palm of his hand. “Just _swell.”_

Magnus stifles an amused noise at the level of sarcasm aimed his way. There’s flour all down the back of Alec’s left shoulder-blade. Magnus isn’t sure how he managed that, but he wishes he’d left his study a little earlier. 

“It’s just that I heard cursing,” Magnus says, his mouth twitching when Alec grunts and prods at the same thing he just aggressively slapped. “Very violent, colourful cursing. I’ve only ever heard you that vocal in the bedroom, although admittedly you’ve never called me _that.”_

Alec whips a cloth off the counter and flings it in Magnus’s direction, but it sags pathetically in the middle of the kitchen, flopping on the tiles. Magnus allows himself a small laugh as he darts across the curtain, peering around Alec’s dejected form to stare at the brown lump sitting on the counter. 

“Mmm.”

Alec turns his head sharply, eyes narrowing. “What does that mean? What’s ‘mmm’ supposed to mean?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Magnus says lightly, taking in Alec’s pretty, sun-lit face. There’s some kind of… gunk near Alec’s impressive eyebrow that looks a tad sentient. Magnus wonders if it means to stay. 

“Magnus,” Alec says, sighing. He pokes the lump again and shakes his head. “It’s supposed to be bread.”

Magnus eyes the lump with no small amount of alarm; if it’s supposed to be edible, then Magnus is probably going to have to eat it at some point. “Ah. Have you cooked it yet?”

Alec demonstrably sticks one finger in the middle of the lump and retracts it slowly. Lumps of dough stick like strings to his fingers, and the spongy middle melds back together after a moment. 

“Does this look cooked to you?”

“It’s hard to tell sometimes, with your food,” Magnus says, and he has to take several large steps back, laughing, when Alec holds up his sticky hand in warning. 

“It’s not that bad,” Magnus promises, when Alec grumbles and puts his hand down, reaching over to fiddle with the stove dials. “Maybe it’ll look better once it’s risen.” 

He meant it to be reassuring, but Alec responds with an exasperated groan, throwing his head back to stare at the ceiling.

“It’s already risen.”

Magnus bites his lip, glancing at the sad, flat little lump of would-be bread. It’s extremely hard not to laugh. 

“Perhaps it’s just having some performance issues,” Magnus offers. He gets another tea-towel thrown his way for his trouble, and he retreats, laughing, to the relative safety of the doorway. 

“Go back to your study,” Alec says, but the beginnings of a reluctant grin are in place. “I’ll call you in half an hour, when it’s done.”

“I cannot wait.” Magnus blows him a kiss as he backtracks into the hallway, listening to Alec mutter and grumble to himself, and idly wonders what kind of emergency he can plan to take place in roughly thirty minutes. 

*

When Alec piles all the dishes in the sink, the kitchen looks marginally better. There’s still flour in impossible places, and a little bit of mushed dough under the button for the coffee machine, but Magnus will probably insist on doing a thorough magical clean later on anyway, so he considers those missed bits treats for Magnus’s magic. 

He puts his hands in soapy, warm water and scrubs the first bowl. With the yellow light coming through the window, and the soothing sound of Magnus’s footsteps padding down the hall, Alec can almost pretend that his bread isn’t most likely charring itself. 

Hands wrap around his waist, and Magnus presses indolent kisses to Alec’s neck, humming. They stand in the peace of their kitchen, basking in the warmth, with only the soft slosh of sudsy water to break the quiet spell. 

“Who won the war?” Magnus asks eventually, his voice low. “You or the dough?”

“I think the stove probably won in the end,” Alec says. “I know the kitchen lost.”

He feels more than hears Magnus chuckle. Another kiss is tucked under his jaw for safekeeping, and then Magnus steps away. 

“I suppose we better have a look, then.”

Alec dries his hands with a sigh. In minutes, the stove is empty, the air is a little more cloudy, and the bread is sitting on a rack on the counter. They survey it, side-by-side in silence. 

“It’s just that bit in the middle that’s burned,” Magnus points out gently. 

Alec snorts. “We’ll just eat around it. Because people famously throw out the middle of their sandwich and just eat the crust, don't they?”

“My my, Alexander, you’re full of joy today, aren’t you?” Magnus elbows Alec gently, grinning. With a snap, he summons a knife from across the room, and Alec has to try not to rear back in alarm as Magnus catches it effortlessly and begins hacking away. 

“Here,” Magnus says, dusting off his hands a moment later. There’s a sizeable hole in the middle of the bread. “All done. Now we just need - ah!”

“What are you doing?” Alec asks, watching in bemusement as Magnus strides over to the fridge, wrenching it open and rifling through his many unnecessary purchases. He withdraws after a minute with a triumphant shout, holding up a small wheel of Camembert. 

“There’s no problem that can’t be solved with cheese, Alexander,” Magnus says, shutting the fridge with a grin. Alec stares at him. He’s not all that bothered about the bread, even though a tiny bit of him is admittedly pissed that it didn't turn out alright, and there’s a small rage-filled voice in his head crying out about dignity and the Lightwood name. 

But it’s just bread, after all, and he’s not in the habit of crying over burned loaves. 

And yet Magnus is still trying to make things better. He never stops, Alec muses. Not even when it’s not that serious, not even when the only response at the end of his help is likely to be a small smile. He listens to Magnus outline his plan, about baking the cheese inside the bread, and waits until he’s close enough to enact his own plan.

Magnus stops speaking and holds the cheese out for Alec to take. “Would you like to do the honours?”

Alec kisses him instead, soft and slow, in their peace-filled kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

> Just some softness! Thank you so much, I hope you liked it! Let me know what you thought! <3


End file.
